(Part I)
Dawn had not yet come, but the night was unraveling.
The black canvas of the sky was thinning into gray, distant stars fading as clouds stretched long fingers across the horizon. Lantern-light still burned along the harbor of Volantis, mirrored in the Rhoyne's dark waters as the massive silhouettes of docked ships creaked against their tethers. Somewhere inland, beyond the stacked rooftops and temple spires, a horn sounded — one long, deliberate note — then cut off abruptly.
Kaine stood at the rail of his warship, unmoving.
The distance between him and the city felt smaller than it should have been. The sprawling maze of streets, terraces, and towers lay bare to his gaze like something already conquered, though its banners still flew and its soldiers had yet to clash.
"Every age thinks it will be the one to prove fate wrong," he murmured.
No one answered him.
The wind carried the faint scent of coal smoke and brine from the docks. Beneath it lingered something sharper: new oil on steel, freshly tanned leather, the unmistakable tang of war being prepared.
"They mistake size for power," Kaine went on quietly. "And noise for authority."
His gloved hand rested against the cold iron rail. He didn't drum his fingers or tighten his grip; he simply observed, waiting.
Across the harbor, torch-clusters flickered in organized patterns. Movement rippled along the dock roads—squad blocks forming, dispersing, reforming.
"They move early," he said. "Fear doesn't sleep."
At his feet, shadows lengthened — not violently, not unnaturally—but stretching outward like slow, living borders. They slid off the deck along ropes and pylons, slipping quietly over stone walkways and rooftops, creeping through the city's arteries.
Kaine paid them no visible attention.
They brushed past armored captains rehearsing orders. They passed beneath merchant balconies where men whispered urgent contracts into gathered ears. They crossed over Tiger command tents, Elephant meeting halls, mercenary barracks, and covert assembly yards.
Each contact was fleeting.
Every instigator of the city's rising violence was touched — unnamed, unnoticed.
None of them felt the judgment settle on their shoulders.
And behind Kaine, the shadows returned, folding silently back to his boots.
A door opened softly.
Leather brushed wood.
Sereyna emerged onto the deck, hair loosely tied and eyes already sharp with suspicion. Sleep had not touched her deeply — it rarely did when tension lingered anywhere within a dozen leagues of Kaine.
She paused when she saw him.
"At the rail before dawn?" she asked mildly. "That never ends well."
He did not turn.
"You should be asleep," Kaine said.
She snorted quietly and stepped closer, her boots barely whispering against the deck planks. "If you're awake before the sun, something's wrong."
Another door opened behind her.
Vaerynna stepped into the lantern-glow, cloak pulled tight around her shoulders. The faint shimmer of her glamor caught the light and immediately subdued beneath it, scales hidden beneath human guise.
Her gaze swept over the deck once — Kaine, the harbor, the returning shadows — and fixed instantly on the shifting lights across Volantis.
"Oh," she breathed. "They've started."
Sereyna leaned over the railing to follow her line of sight.
Fog thinned nearer the docks. Shapes were resolving into lines. Long ranks moving with disciplined purpose.
"They're forming outside the warehouse quarter," Sereyna muttered. "Tiger banners forward. Shields first."
Vaerynna closed her eyes briefly, as though listening to the city instead of watching it.
"So many heartbeats," she murmured. "Too many for a patrol."
Sereyna shot her a sideways glance. "Your instincts still cheat?"
"They don't cheat," Vaerynna replied quietly. "They whisper."
She looked back at Kaine. "And right now, they whisper war."
Sereyna turned toward him fully.
"Alright," she said. "No riddles. What happened while we slept?"
Kaine did not answer immediately.
They waited.
Finally, he spoke:
"They chose."
Sereyna frowned faintly. "Chose what?"
Vaerynna's expression stilled. "The ultimatum."
Kaine inclined his helm once.
"Certain factions have taken the second option."
Sereyna exhaled slowly. "Meaning what."
"They prepare to kill me."
Neither woman reacted with shock — but something unmistakable shifted between them.
Sereyna's jaw clenched. "Of course they are."
"Volantis never does subtle." Vaerynna said quietly. "Fear turns bold men loud."
"They believe they must act before dawn to avoid appearing indecisive," Kaine explained. "They gathered behind closed doors after nightfall. Contracts were signed. Gold moved fast."
"And you knew," Sereyna said evenly.
"Yes."
"No interruption?" she asked. "You just… watched?"
Kaine turned toward her.
"I marked them."
Vaerynna stiffened slightly. "Marked them how?"
Kaine's gaze moved back to the harbor.
"In memory."
Sereyna studied him for a moment longer before following his eyes toward the city once more.
Another horn sounded.
Then drums.
Rhythmic. Measured.
"They aren't mustering for an arrest," Sereyna said. "They don't sound like legal authority."
"No," Kaine replied.
"They mean to look you in the eye when they do it," Vaerynna added softly. "A public execution."
"An act of courage," Sereyna scoffed. "Sold with borrowed bravery."
The soldier in her bared her teeth faintly.
"But it won't work."
She turned sharply toward the cabin.
"Time to dress."
The sound of boots and armor echoed below deck.
Vaerynna remained at Kaine's side, leaning lightly against the railing.
"If they're convinced force will suffice," she said, watching torchlight bloom across the wharves, "then they don't understand you at all."
Kaine offered no denial.
Vaerynna tilted her head.
"Should I burn them all?"
Kaine looked at her then.
The slight shimmer of her glamor trembled faintly, revealing the dragon's dangerous intensity beneath her calm expression.
"No."
"They've gathered their courage carefully," she pressed gently. "One breath from me would erase—"
"They challenged me."
Vaerynna's voice faded.
Kaine continued slowly:
"It's only proper that I answer them myself."
Her breath tightened.
A thrill surfaced beneath her composed exterior — admiration edged dangerously close to something deeper.
"As you wish," she murmured.
Sereyna returned moments later clad fully in battle gear. She buckled one strap into place while evaluating the opposing formation patterns.
"They're committing the waterfront entirely," she reported. "Shield walls front, missiles layered behind. That's not arrest posture. That's killing ground formation."
"How many?" Vaerynna asked.
Sereyna squinted toward the fog-draped ranks.
"Thousands. Probably close to five if the Elephant mercs have melded yet."
Vaerynna whistled.
Sereyna glanced at Kaine. "Guess they think size wins wars."
Kaine didn't answer — instead lifting his hand.
Across the deck, three hundred armored soldiers assembled.
No shouted orders.
No clatter.
No sound at all.
Formation clicked into existence like a single mechanism engaging.
A flawless black wall.
Sereyna felt the familiar tightening in her chest.
"Every time," she murmured. "I forget how unnerving that is."
Across the water, the Volantene drums surged louder.
Men shouted themselves brave.
The Legion did not respond.
They only waited.
Kaine drew his blade at last, steel gleaming pale beneath the rising gray sky.
"They've chosen blood," Nyessa's distant whisper echoed from behind them on the deck.
"And blood they will find," Sereyna answered flatly.
Kaine stepped forward.
The Legion moved behind him as one.
Dawn crested the harbor.
And the armies stood facing each other at last.
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part II)
The harbor held its breath.
Mist hung low across the docks, drifting in lazy streams between stacked cargo crates and moored warships. Hundreds of torches burned in guttering rows along the causeway roads, throwing dancing halos of orange light across shield rims and spearheads. Their glow waveringly reflected off helms etched with Tigers and Elephants—symbols of Volantis's divided pride now stitched together into a single army for the first time in decades.
Five thousand soldiers stood ready.
They shifted restlessly, boots scraping the stone pier, issuing sharp commands as officers hurried from rank to rank, shouting final instructions over the beat of drums.
"Shields up!"
"Close spacing!"
"Hold the line, damn you!"
The fear was everywhere.
Men hid it behind bravado and raised voices, but it leaked into posture: shoulders too high, grips too tight, visors adjusted one too many times.
Across the water, the Legion remained unmoving.
Three hundred figures of black steel stood silently at the edge of the pier. No banners. No horns. No shouted defiance.
Just a flawless wall of armored stillness.
"Gods," Sereyna muttered, squinting across the mist. "They look wrong. No chatter. No adjusting straps. No fidgeting."
She rolled her shoulders, settling into combat readiness.
Vaerynna stood near Kaine's right flank, crossing her arms loosely as she studied enemy formation movements.
"They fear us," Vaerynna observed.
Sereyna raised a brow. "They outnumber us nearly twenty to one."
"Yes," Vaerynna said evenly. "Which is why they fear us."
She smiled faintly.
Fear did not belong to the weaker force; it belonged to the one that expected uncertainty.
Sereyna followed her gaze to the ranks of Volantene soldiers tightening their formations, compressing inward like wolves closing ranks.
"They're overcompensating," Sereyna said. "Look at their spacing."
Vaerynna tilted her head. "Explain."
"They're bunching too tight. They want morale density — the illusion of strength in numbers. But clustered ranks turn formations brittle." She let out a breathless chuckle. "They look more like a mob lining up to die than an army ready to hold ground."
Vaerynna glanced sideways at Kaine.
"You trained her well."
Kaine did not answer, eyes fixed across the harbor.
"They believe they can surround us," he said at last. "They believe the edge of the water limits our movement."
"And that we'll fold under arrow rain," Sereyna added.
"Which we won't," Vaerynna replied.
The drums thundered louder.
An officer's horn sounded.
The Volantene ranks stepped forward in perfect unison — shields lifting into a wall of polished bronze and gilded steel, spearpoints angling outward.
"They're advancing already," Sereyna said.
Vaerynna's tongue traced her lip briefly, attention riveted to the enormous formation taking shape.
"It begins with a bluff," she whispered. "They want us to charge foolishly."
"Legions don't bluff," Sereyna replied.
She glanced toward their own formation.
"They're waiting for you."
All three hundred Legion soldiers stood motionless, helms forward, shields locked to create a unified black wall that looked less like a military line and more like an executioner's barricade.
Not a single blade drawn yet.
No sound.
No shift.
No tension release.
Just poised inevitability waiting for command.
The city's soldiers advanced another fifty yards.
Arrows rose slowly on bows.
"That's premature," Sereyna snapped. "They're not even within shield drop range."
"They're aiming at you," Vaerynna said.
Sereyna snorted. "Then they'll miss."
Kaine lifted his blade — not in command, but simply letting its edge catch the dawn light.
The metallic whisper turned three hundred helms in perfect synchronization.
"Hold," Kaine said quietly.
The Legion did not respond verbally.
They did not need to.
Sereyna exhaled sharply and reached toward her sword grip, stopping short.
She glanced toward Vaerynna.
"You nervous?"
Vaerynna nodded slightly.
"Yes."
"About us losing?"
Vaerynna shook her head.
"About you charging before you should," she replied dryly.
Sereyna barked a quick laugh.
"That's fair."
Across the water, the Volantene bow captains shouted.
"Draw!"
Bowstrings creaked taut, hundreds of arrows silhouetted against the dawning sky.
Many of the younger soldiers breathed too fast.
Several older veterans swallowed hard.
No one could understand how the black Legion hadn't budged at all.
"They expect panic," Vaerynna said softly. "Their commanders think silence is weakness."
"They won't after this," Sereyna replied.
The Volantene horn blew.
"Loose—!"
Kaine's arm lifted a single palm.
"Shields."
Three hundred movements snapped simultaneously.
Steel towers swung up and locked together.
Not shields raised individually — but as a single layered structure that fitted so tightly it created one continuous slab of interlocking armor.
An iron sea wall formed across the dock.
The air filled with flight.
Hundreds of arrows screamed toward the Legion in a storm of black shafts—
They struck the shield wall.
Metal rang.
Wood cracked.
Iron splintered.
But the Legion did not give ground.
No shield buckled.
No man staggered.
Not even the slightest shift of posture rippled through their ranks.
The arrows might as well have struck a battlement.
Behind the shield lattice, no warrior spoke.
No breath was wasted.
Some arrows shattered apart and bounced harmlessly into the harbor. Others lodged in shield faces, trembling uselessly as the Legion stood firm.
Sereyna shook her head appreciatively.
"That's discipline."
"That's inevitability," Vaerynna corrected quietly.
On the opposite shore, Volantene soldiers stared.
Some laughed weakly.
Some faltered.
The illusion of easy victory shattered all at once.
"They didn't even move," one of the Tiger officers muttered.
"Reload!" a captain barked.
The ranks obeyed, but less sharply now.
Unease had taken root.
Kaine stepped forward one pace.
The Legion did not yet move.
Their formation remained locked.
The enemy line paused its advance, officers shouting arguments down the ranks as confusion spread.
"They didn't expect it," Vaerynna whispered.
"Now they know," Sereyna said. "And knowing will cost them."
"What now?" Vaerynna asked quietly.
Kaine did not look at her.
"We walk."
He stepped forward.
Three hundred armored boots struck stone in absolute unison.
It was the first sound the Legion had made since dawn.
The harbor seemed to shudder under it.
The Legion advanced in perfect formation — shields locked forward, swords still undrawn — marching across the pier straight into the death corridor the Volantenes had prepared.
The enemy officers shouted.
"Hold ranks!"
"Form tighter!"
"Don't let them intimidate you!"
But intimidation did not come from the Legion's appearance.
It came from their silence.
From the fact that thirty men marched into five thousand without flinching — and five thousand faltered.
"They've lost initiative," Sereyna said with a low breath.
"Yes," Kaine agreed.
"The moment they doubted their certainty."
The two forces closed distance.
One marched.
One waited.
And dawn burned fully across the harbor.
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part III)
The Legion advanced without a sound.
No cadence.No shouted commands.No war cries to impress the enemy.
Three hundred armored boots struck stone in flawless unison.
The rhythm felt less like marching and more like an approaching execution.
Sereyna drew her sword at last, steel whispering free of the scabbard.
"They keep waiting for us to charge," she said quietly. "They'll stand there until their captains tell them to panic."
"They believe noise creates courage," Vaerynna replied. "Silence tells the truth."
Kaine did not turn his helm.
"Courage is irrelevant," he said. "Discipline decides."
Volantene pikes leveled ahead—hundreds of spearpoints crossing into a jagged hedge of steel.
"Brace!" an Elephant officer screamed.
The Legion did not brace.
They advanced.
"Shield lock!" Sereyna barked instinctively.
Kaine spoke more quietly than her shout.
"Lock."
Three hundred shields slid into place with surgical precision.
The formation altered by degrees—angled into a spear-breaking wedge where overlapping shields created a layered battering wall rather than a flat face.
Sereyna whistled.
"They just turned a kill zone into a funnel."
The first spears struck.
Metal rang.
Wood splintered.
The Legion did not move.
The Volantene soldiers shoved forward, forced by numbers, their weight driving their own spear shafts into shield rims where the angle betrayed them.
"Push harder!" a Tiger commander yelled.
They pushed.
And their line twisted apart.
"Half-step!" Kaine commanded.
The Legion advanced half a pace.
Spears slid uselessly aside.
Sword hilts rose.
Steel flashed—
—and Volantis's front rank collapsed.
No screaming.
No battle cry.
Just bodies dropping wherever armor failed them.
Sereyna darted into the breach.
Her blade danced in ruthless, efficient arcs—cutting forearms to disarm, hamstrings to end movement, necks to finish.
"Left gap opening!" she called.
Vaerynna surged beside her, shield slamming into a shield-bearer's face and throwing him back into his fellows. Her boots pivoted fluidly despite the treacherous ground.
"They're compressing too tight!" Vaerynna warned.
"They always do," Sereyna replied grimly.
The Legion stepped forward as one entity.
Not a mob.
Not even individuals.
A weapon-shaped force.
Their formation opened into rotating engagement rings:
– Front rank locked shields and absorbed impact.– Second rank flowed forward in blades-only rotation.– Third rank executed strike-and-withdraw maneuvers.
Death moved mechanically.
Volantene soldiers charged.
The Legion did not meet them head-on.
They split them.
They swallowed flanks.
They folded outward arcs into inward traps.
Entire squads vanished into perfect silence as swords flashed and blood ran along the pier stones.
Vaerynna watched the pattern unfold with measured awe.
"They move like a thinking organism."
"They move like him," Sereyna corrected over her shoulder.
A Tiger officer screamed.
"Form wedge! Target the black commander!"
Twenty soldiers broke formation, spearheads leveling toward Kaine's position at the Legion's core.
Vaerynna spotted it first.
"Kaine—flank charge!"
He was already shifting his grip.
"Counter rotation."
The Legion did not verbalize the maneuver.
Two sections pivoted seamlessly inward—shields angling into opposing prongs that created a narrow kill corridor.
The Tiger squad sprinted straight into it.
They never reached Kaine.
Swords lashed from both sides.
The wedge became a coffin.
The last Tiger died mid-roar.
Sereyna flicked blood from her blade.
"They weren't even close."
"They thought numbers still mattered," Vaerynna murmured.
The Legion pushed again.
This time the Volantene archers fired over their own collapsing lines.
"Mistake," Sereyna snapped, ducking under a stray arrow.
Several Tiger soldiers fell screaming as friendly shafts struck them.
"Command collapse is accelerating," Kaine noted calmly.
"But they still have reserves," Vaerynna warned.
From the Merchant faction's lines surged heavy infantry—armored caravan guards wielding waraxes and tower shields. They aimed at the Legion's far flank where broken dock stone created uneven footing.
"They want to break formation on terrain," Sereyna growled. "Solid thought. Bad timing."
Kaine tracked their movement for two seconds.
"Right flank adjust. Hawk spread."
The Legion obeyed immediately.
Their ranks widened subtly, spacing adjusted to gateway footwork.
When the merchants charged—
They tripped on their own aggression.
Boots slipped.
Shields misaligned.
Falling men tangled up the ranks behind them.
The Legion surged into the disorder and cut through mercilessly.
Axes never reached full swing.
Shields collapsed under surgical rams.
The Merchant assault evaporated.
One officer screamed.
And fell silent.
Breathing hard now, Sereyna glanced at Kaine amid the carnage.
"You're not reacting. You're already ahead of them."
He didn't look at her.
"I know where thought inevitably fails."
Vaerynna wiped blood from her gauntlet.
"Prediction or instinct?"
"Experience."
The Volantenes surged their reserves; priests began chanting from the back ranks.
Fire sigils flared weakly over their altars.
"They're invoking R'hllor," Vaerynna said sharply. "Trying to strengthen morale through flame rites."
Kaine paused mid-step.
"No," he said.
"They won't."
The chant stuttered.
The flames sputtered faintly and vanished.
The priests froze, confused.
Something had disrupted the ritual—not magic, but presence.
Not divine suppression—but inevitability itself pulling fate taut.
Sereyna studied Kaine.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"But the spell—"
"They required certainty to fuel their ritual."
"And you took it away?"
"They looked at me."
Kaine stepped forward.
The Legion did not follow.
His single motion halted three hundred soldiers at once.
Sereyna's voice sharpened.
"Are you going alone?"
"Yes."
Vaerynna frowned. "Even you don't need to challenge five thousand head-on."
Kaine's gaze remained fixed ahead.
"They challenged me."
"That's not the same thing," Sereyna snapped.
"Yes," Kaine replied quietly. "It is."
He moved past them.
Out of the shield wall.
Out of the formation.
Alone into the advancing chaos.
The moment he crossed the Legion's front—
The battlefield felt as if gravity shifted.
Not through sorcery.
Not through visible aura.
Just sensation — as if every soldier suddenly realized they were no longer facing an army...
They were facing a singular will made physical.
The chanting fully died.
Commanders stopped shouting.
All eyes tracked him.
Vaerynna whispered, almost reverently:
"He shouldn't be possible."
Sereyna tightened her grip on her sword.
"He never was."
Kaine walked forward into the approaching mass of thousands.
Unhurried.
Unchallenged.
Unbound.
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part IV)
Kaine walked alone into the widening mouth of the battlefield.
No shield before him.No blade raised.
Just the quiet certainty of a man who had already decided the outcome.
Five thousand soldiers stared at the approaching black figure, their forward momentum faltering without command ever needing to be spoken.
"Hold the line!" someone screamed.
"Close ranks!"
"Protect the Triarch's banner!"
The orders overlapped, colliding into confusion.
Sereyna swore under her breath.
"They're already losing cohesion."
"They started losing it the moment he stepped out," Vaerynna replied.
The Volantene front ranks hesitated—men glancing backward for reassurance, for leadership, for certainty.
None came.
Kaine kept walking.
A Tiger lieutenant broke first. He stepped out from the line, spear shaking in his hands as if trying to convince himself proximity meant bravery.
"You!" he shouted hoarsely. "You think this city will bow just because you walk forward!?"
The man lunged.
It should have been fast.
It should have threatened.
It barely registered.
Kaine pivoted off-step, caught the spear shaft with one gauntleted hand, twisted—
—and drove his blade through the lieutenant's collar.
The spear clattered to the stones with metallic finality.
The body slid free and collapsed.
No flourish.
No cruelty.
Just removal.
Sereyna caught herself exhaling sharply.
"That's what they're facing…"
Vaerynna whispered,"…and they just realized it."
Two more soldiers rushed Kaine.
"Now!" an officer screamed.
Kaine stepped toward them.
Swords flashed—three precise movements.
Three bodies dropped.
No wasted motion.
No theatrical aggression.
The Volantene ranks surged forward in panic—men charging not because they believed in victory, but because standing still felt more terrifying than death.
Sereyna and Vaerynna exchanged a single glance.
"Time to end the illusion," Sereyna said.
The Legion surged forward behind them.
Not chaotically—not charging blindly — but expanding around Kaine in widening kill arcs, correcting and pivoting to envelop Volantis's collapsing spear wall.
Sereyna dove back into battle beside Kaine, blades spinning.
"So—did you mean to make the entire battlefield collapse around you?" she shouted amid the clash.
Kaine parried an axe and answered levelly:
"They would not have advanced if I remained stationary."
Another soldier lunged.
Vaerynna crushed his knee with a shield bash and slashed his throat in a single, lethal follow-up.
"Next time," she snapped, "mention the psychology lesson!"
The dock turned into slaughter.
Volantenes ran in fragmented groups, bumping into Legion shield arcs and being harvested with brutal precision.
Where Legion formations met resistance, they pinwheeled formation shifts:
• Shield walls locking to stall pressure.
• Blade cohorts slipping through gaps.
• Kill rings forming whenever soldiers attempted to cluster.
Commanders shouted until swords closed their throats.
Pennants fell.
The Tiger standard collapsed into the water.
"General down!" someone screamed.
Sereyna cut through a knot of infantry and emerged near Kaine again.
"They're crumbling. Officers are melting away."
"They were never fighting for command," Kaine replied. "Only habit."
A large Elephant banner surged toward Kaine's position—forty soldiers charging desperately, hoping killing him would undo the collapse.
Sereyna raised her sword.
"Kaine—flanking wave!"
"I see them."
Kaine didn't retreat.
He advanced.
The Legion curved inward around him automatically, forming a rotating semi-circle.
Vaerynna stepped into Kaine's blind side without instruction.
"Keep angle," she said.
Sereyna positioned opposite her.
For the first time, the three fought together directly.
The Elephant vanguard slammed forward.
And vanished.
Steel blurred.
Bodies fell too fast for screams.
Sereyna severed two spear shafts.
Vaerynna broke shields and throats.
Kaine carved the heart out of the group with surgical efficiency.
Forty soldiers were reduced to silence in seconds.
A surviving Elephant captain staggered back, gaping at the carnage.
"This… this isn't war…" he breathed.
Kaine met his eyes.
"No," he said. "It isn't."
Then the captain fell with a sword through his chest.
Smoke rose from overturned torches where dock debris ignited.
The sky lightened steadily as dawn loomed fully above the harbor.
The Legion had advanced nearly half the dock length — through five thousand now reduced to less than four.
"They're retreating!" Sereyna called.
Vaerynna nodded. "Scatter phase. Final resistance clusters forming."
"They're pulling toward the warehouses," Sereyna added, scanning. "Trying to regroup."
Kaine followed her gaze.
"They won't succeed."
"Kaine," Vaerynna said quietly, eyes sliding to the far end of the docks, "look at the rooftops."
He did.
Movement.
Figures.
Arbalests being raised among stacked cargo houses overlooking the water.
"Crossbows," Sereyna snarled. "They waited for our push-in to get close enough."
"They planned an assassination volley," Vaerynna said. "Not a battlefield solution."
"So much for honor."
Kaine studied the emerging silhouettes, eyes narrowing.
"They're not targeting me alone," he said.
Sereyna followed his sightline.
"…they're marking command clusters."
Entire Legion group nodes lay within firing arcs.
Wait—
"They aren't just attacking," she realized.
"They're preparing an organized counterstrike."
Vaerynna's tail stiffened beneath her glamor.
"Multiple factions planning something bigger than this engagement…"
Kaine inclined his head.
"Yes."
His shadows crept outward across rooftops unseen, sliding along beams, pillars, ship masts — tagging movement nodes, marking organizers.
Not the soldiers.
The planners.
The traitors.
The chosen.
He said nothing — but felt their presence clearly.
Sereyna stepped closer.
"Kaine?"
"There are more here than this army."
Vaerynna tensed. "Another strike force?"
"Another betrayal," he answered.
"They never intended this to be the true fight."
The warship cannons creaked faintly behind them.
Legion shields reset defensively.
The Volantene forces regrouped nervously, battered yet not fully broken.
Something else was coming.
A second move.
Sereyna lifted her sword.
"So this battle's just the opening act?"
"Yes."
Vaerynna smiled, breath tight.
"Good."
Kaine gripped his blade tighter and turned back toward the shattered docks.
"Then we show them what happens when conspirators reveal themselves."
The Legion tightened formation.
Across the harbor rooftops, crossbow teams knelt into firing stance.
The trap was fully forming now.
And dawn burned red on Volantis's waters.
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part V)
The first crossbow bolt cut the air with a shrill whine.
Sereyna barely had time to shout—
"Down!"
The Legion shifted as one.
Shields snapped upward into an overlapping canopy just as the sky darkened.
Bolts hammered down like iron hail.
The sound changed abruptly—from ringing impacts against facing shields to dull thuds where shafts shattered under layered plate.
None found flesh.
The canopy held.
Vaerynna crouched beside Kaine, eyes blazing.
"Rooftop teams," she hissed. "At least three dozen shooters spread across the southern warehouses."
"They waited until we committed forward," Sereyna growled. "Baited us into volley range."
Kaine studied the rooftops silently.
His shadows finished tracing their outlines — mapping bodies, weapons, command signals leaping between messengers.
Then he spoke.
"They are organized."
Vaerynna glanced sideways. "Meaning?"
"They aren't reacting. They planned this second phase."
The second volley struck.
Bolts ricocheted across shield facings, pinging into the harbor or sticking uselessly in armored rims like discarded needles.
Still no Legion voice. Still no cries of pain.
Just disciplined silence.
Sereyna peered out between shield seams.
"They've got range advantage," she muttered. "We charge rooftops, we break formation."
"Which is what they want," Vaerynna said.
Kaine nodded.
"Legion, cross-pattern advance."
The command passed wordlessly.
The shield canopy shifted downward into forward wedges while second ranks lifted tower shields skyward.
The formation flattened — expanding outward into a wide diamond pattern to disperse targeting lanes.
Bolts fell — and struck only angled steel.
"They're marking our shapes," Sereyna observed.
"Then remove their vantage points," Vaerynna replied.
"How?"
Kaine answered calmly:
"We climb the battlefield instead of crossing it."
He lifted two fingers subtly toward Vaerynna.
"Left wing."
She inhaled sharply—excitement flooding her expression.
"Burn?"
"No."
Her crest flickered faintly.
"Suppress."
Vaerynna grinned like something dangerous.
She sprinted forward with unnatural speed, Legion shields parting precisely long enough to allow her passage.
Bolts followed her movement —
—but she moved too fast.
Her palm struck the stone dock and her draconic energy rippled forward in a shockwave — not flame, but displacement.
Dock crates vaulted into the air like debris tossed by a storm.
Three crossbow teams were knocked backward off rooftops by cascading impacts.
Screams cut briefly through the air as bodies plunged toward the quay below.
Sereyna blinked.
"That… was efficient."
Vaerynna did not slow. She leaped from piled crates onto a roof ledge with predatory grace.
"I was told not to burn them all," she called back cheerfully.
Kaine's gaze returned to the other ward.
"Sereyna."
Her grin was feral.
"Your turn."
She sprinted as the Legion broke ranks for her passage.
Bolts streaked toward her — she deflected three mid-leap, rolled over a barrel, and slammed into the base ladder of the western warehouse.
Two crossbowmen tried to reload at once.
She introduced them to gravity and steel.
Sereyna shouted:
"They've got messenger runners linking the factions!"
"I see them."
Kaine's blade lifted slightly.
Shadows rippled from his presence, sliding across the dock stones toward darting figures between cover.
Moments later, the runners collapsed — not visibly slain, but cut down by unseen strikes.
But the rooftop formations were still numerous.
Volantene archers cycled reloads rapidly, determined to overwhelm with volume.
"Forward shifts!" Vaerynna shouted from above. "They're adjusting positions!"
"They adapt too slowly," Sereyna replied from the western roof, parrying another attacker. "Their commands lag!"
Down below, Legion squads flowed inward and outward to absorb emerging threats.
Every crossbow volley found only hardened armor angling against it.
Several Volantene officers attempted to rally infantry charges during the distraction.
They were intercepted by advancing shield cohorts and vanished beneath black steel waves.
Kaine surveyed it all calmly — but his attention caught on something new.
Movement beneath the docks.
Not soldiers.
Carriers.
Crates being dragged toward ambush deployment zones.
"Second weapon vector," he murmured.
Vaerynna's voice snapped from above:
"They have firebombs!"
Sereyna cursed. "Oil and pitch flasks. They're trying to break the shield wall with splash demolition!"
"They coordinated this across factions," Kaine said flatly.
"They thought of everything — except inevitability."
Kaine signaled the Legion with a brief hand motion.
The shields rearranged — canopy lifting above the central ranks while the second ring staggered outward, creating a vacated corridor.
"Spread blast channel," he commanded.
Explosive crates rolled out from under the docks as Volantenes ignited pitch bombs and hurled them forward.
The first detonated.
Fire splashed across shield angles — sliding harmlessly off plated surfaces to drain into the vacated path deliberately opened into the harbor water.
Steam hissed.
Several soldiers screamed — but none from the Legion.
Their own crews burned.
They had misjudged the geometry.
"It… drained away," Sereyna whispered.
"Everything around him becomes geometry," Vaerynna said quietly.
Another explosion hit.
Another flowed neatly toward water.
The Legion never flinched.
Kaine stepped forward.
The entire battle quieted perceptibly — even Volantene soldiers faltered, unnerved by the realization that nothing they attempted altered the shape of death closing around them.
From the rooftops, Vaerynna called:
"Confirmed — this attack had joint authorization among at least four factions!"
"And an independent sponsor," Sereyna added. "Someone's paying for equipment disparity."
Kaine inclined his head.
"Yes.
And I already know who."
Both women paused.
"Sereyna," Vaerynna said carefully. "Should we ask?"
Kaine spoke first.
"They won't leave the harbor once I finish today."
The remaining rooftop crossbow teams regrouped for one final volley.
Kaine raised his blade level — horizontally — a command posture the Legion had not yet seen.
The shield rings closed into a hardened spear formation around him.
Sereyna froze.
"That's not defense posture."
Vaerynna's lips curved.
"No. That's pursuit."
Across the docks, hundreds of remaining Volantene troops braced as the Legion stance sharpened into lethal geometry.
The Legion advanced.
And the true killing phase began.
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part VI)
The Legion moved.
Not with the rush of a charge.
Not with shouts or fury.
They advanced with the cold inevitability of tide against stone.
At Kaine's raised blade, shields lowered into full interlock while spear shafts slid forward over shield rims in fluid synchronization — three hundred spearpoints appearing at once like the awakening of a single great beast.
The Volantenes visibly froze.
Not because of the weapon.
Because of the silence.
"Formation change," Sereyna breathed. "Phalanx assault."
Vaerynna stood at her side, eyes sharpened.
"They waited to use spears until it mattered."
Kaine lowered his blade.
"Advance."
The Legion walked.
Each step locked into the next — shields fused together, spears leveled at exact breast height. No individual motion; only formation motion existed now.
Volantene shields lifted hurriedly.
"Brace!" their commander shouted.
Too late.
The Legion struck like a moving wall.
Thoom.
Shield rims collided.
The kinetic impact rolled through the harbor dock as if stone had met steel.
The Legion did not halt.
They pushed.
Classic hoplite drive — weight layered, shoulder-to-back leverage stacking behind shield walls, every soldier distributing force through unified bracing.
Volantenes screamed as their front rank compressed backward into their own men.
Spears plunged.
Not wildly.
Not repeatedly.
Each Legionnaire stabbed once — precise thrusts into throat gaps, armpit joints, visor slits.
And withdrew.
Then again.
A drilled cycle:
Thrust — Reset — Advance.
Bodies fell forward or were dragged under foot as pressure wave continued.
Sereyna darted beside the right flank, slashing down exposed spear shafts whenever Volantenes tried to hook shields.
"They're not even stabbing fast!" she yelled.
"They don't need speed," Vaerynna replied grimly. "They're leveraging inevitability."
Volantenes attempted counterthrusts — disorganized spearing at shield rims — but the Legion's layered shield alignment deflected them mechanically.
No anger.
No haste.
Just extermination rhythm.
Sereyna glanced at the spectral cadence of death unfolding beside her.
"They fight like stone advancing."
Kaine spoke evenly beside her:
"They fight like termination incarnate."
A cluster of Tigers attempted a breakthrough maneuver, charging sideways to strike the wedge's soft angle.
"Left breach!" Vaerynna called.
Kaine twisted two fingers — a micro-command.
The Legion shifted.
Spearpoints rotated like compass needles, pivoting as the shield wall angled inward.
The Tigers slammed into locked iron and died in seconds.
No retreat.
No deviation.
The Legion line flattened again and resumed advance.
The dock became a narrowing corridor of bodies.
Torchlight reflected off blood-slicked stone.
Sereyna vaulted over a fallen Volantene officer and shouted:
"They're breaking rear ranks — collapse is spreading!"
She was right.
The men behind began stepping backward — not running yet, but losing the ability to hold the line.
Then—
They ran.
"They're retreating," Vaerynna said.
"No," Sereyna corrected as she impaled a fleeing soldier with her blade.
"They're trying to funnel us."
Kaine observed the retreat patterns.
"Warehouse alleys," he murmured. "They attempt to break formation."
Standard last-resort tactic —
Narrow spaces to disrupt phalanx cohesion.
"They won't succeed," Vaerynna said quietly.
Kaine nodded.
"Because they misunderstand this formation."
He raised his blade.
"Split phalanx — tri-lane advance."
The Legion executed instantly.
The shield wall opened into three spear-wedges while maintaining side overlaps — allowing maneuver while preserving mutual flank protection.
Sereyna chuckled darkly.
"They think a phalanx is immobile."
"Only when poorly trained," Vaerynna replied.
The Legion flowed into alley corridors like living geometry.
The wet docks amplified spear thrust echoes — each coordinated strike creating a dull rhythmic sound now audible amid the silence.
Thunk. Snap. Thud.
A drumbeat of ordered death.
Volantenes screamed — clustered alley escapes turned into kill corridors.
Not even close combat thrashing saved them.
Legion spears dominated space before swords ever came into reach.
Sereyna cut through an alley side skirmish and whipped toward Kaine.
"They're sending their last coordinated group."
Ahead, roughly two hundred Volantenes gathered — remaining officers dragging ranks into a desperate shield charge meant to ram the phalanx apart through sheer impact.
"They aren't breaking," Vaerynna observed. "They're suicidal."
Kaine did not step forward.
He waited.
At twenty paces —
"Brace."
The Legion halted.
They planted spears into locked positions — forward shafts anchoring against ground teeth.
Volantenes smashed into the hardened spear-wall.
Men impaled themselves unknowingly on steady points.
The momentum wave died violently.
The front ranks dropped.
Those behind tripped forward into spikes.
No line broke.
Only flesh did.
Silence fell again — broken only by coughing and dying breaths.
The Legion reset formation.
Sereyna exhaled slowly.
"That wasn't a battle."
Vaerynna's voice was subdued.
"That was an execution."
Kaine surveyed the slaughtered docks.
The Legion had advanced less than two hundred feet.
Over two thousand Volantene soldiers lay dead.
The rest were broken or scattered.
But Kaine's gaze did not linger on corpses.
He focused past the battlefield —
Toward shadows clustering beyond the harbor.
Movement he had already marked.
The planners.
The conspirators.
The real enemies.
Sereyna followed his stare.
"There's more coming, isn't there?"
"Yes," Kaine replied.
Vaerynna tightened her stance.
"Another wave?"
"No."
He shook his head.
"Another trap."
And somewhere deeper in Volantis —
Something far worse was stirring.
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part VII)
The docks were no longer a battlefield.
They were a graveyard.
Broken shields littered the stone like discarded coin, spears sticking upright from piled bodies as if the fallen themselves had been turned into signposts of defeat. Smoke drifted lazily upward from dying torches and scorched pitch where sabotage had failed.
Yet the silence now was heavier than before — not the Legion's discipline, but the quiet of something unfinished.
Kaine stood motionless amid the carnage, blade angled toward the ground.
Sereyna wiped blood from her jaw, eyes scanning the veil of smoke choking the far end of the harbor.
"This isn't over," she said flatly.
Vaerynna rolled her shoulders, her gaze darting to rooftops abandoned by the assassins who had fled moments earlier.
"No. They expected the dockside massacre. This part went according to someone's plan… just not how they wanted."
Kaine's shadows stretched unnatural lengths from his boots, slipping between stacked crates, curling around mast rigging, flowing across abandoned warehouses invisible to mortal eyes.
"They retreated too deliberately," he murmured.
Sereyna frowned.
"You think they pulled back on purpose?"
Kaine nodded once.
"Yes."
"Meaning?"
"The force here was never meant to destroy us."
Vaerynna turned sharply toward him.
"Then what was the point?"
"To measure."
The word cut colder than the morning breeze.
Sereyna scowled. "Measure what? The Legion's capability? Your reaction time?"
"Both," Kaine replied. "And who among Volantis would act first."
His shadows twisted, subtly tightening.
"Every ambush exposes its architects."
Kaine stepped forward.
The Legion remained at their posts without needing command — shields re-locking unconsciously into a low-perimeter guard formation, spears angled outward.
"They're still above us," Vaerynna said quietly.
Kaine inclined his head toward the stacked stone warehouses.
"Yes."
"Crossbowmen retreat?" Sereyna guessed.
"No."
The shadow tendrils flicked sharply — stopping, tightening, marking.
"Execution teams."
Vaerynna's eyes widened faintly.
"Not soldiers."
"Correct."
Sereyna's grip tightened on her sword.
"Assassins?"
Kaine nodded.
"Private factions don't pay for armies when knives can suffice."
Before Sereyna could retort—
Movement burst from the rooftops.
Not bolts this time.
Blades.
Dark shapes leapt downward from warehouse ledges — black-cloaked figures striking not toward the Legion's mass but toward individual officers, messengers, wounded soldiers and scattered witnesses across the docks.
"Target disperse assassination!" Sereyna barked.
"They're silencing survivors," Vaerynna snarled.
Dozens of assassins cut through the drifting chaos, striking fleeing Volantene soldiers — not out of mercy, but to erase knowledge.
"Legion, hold pattern," Kaine ordered.
The line stayed fixed.
Sereyna spun toward him sharply.
"You're letting them kill their own—?"
Kaine's voice was even.
"They remove those who would speak."
Sereyna realized.
"Which means whoever ordered them… doesn't want testimony."
Vaerynna looked toward the city skyline rising beyond the harbor.
"So the real enemies aren't here."
"No," Kaine replied. "They already left."
The assassins made swift work — throats opened, hearts pierced — before melting back into shadows toward flight routes across rope bridges and warehouse roofways.
"They're escaping!" Sereyna snapped.
"They won't get far," Vaerynna growled.
Kaine lifted a hand.
"Wait."
Vaerynna hesitated, frustrated.
"Why hold? We can intercept."
"They are not our prey," Kaine said calmly.
"They are a breadcrumb."
Sereyna's eyes narrowed.
"You're letting them go on purpose."
"Yes."
"So they lead you to whoever paid them."
"They already have."
He turned his gaze inland — toward Volantis's interior, where distant bells rang in confusion from city districts unaware their world was tilting toward new ruin.
"One faction didn't commit soldiers or priests… only shadows."
Vaerynna crossed her arms.
"Meaning the Elephants and Tigers are out."
Sereyna snapped her fingers.
"So which group schemes from darkness?"
"Merchants."
The name settled heavy as iron.
Vaerynna hissed softly.
"The wealth brokers. Always hiding behind contracts and deniability."
"They funded the probe," Kaine said. "Now they have confirmed failure."
Sereyna shook her head.
"And they're dumb enough to try cleaning house on top of it."
"They needed to remove witnesses to hide the scale of defeat."
Kaine turned fully toward his companions.
"But they miscalculated again."
Sereyna smirked.
"They forgot who was watching."
"Yes."
Kaine lifted his blade ever so slightly.
Shadows surged across the dock stone — not attacking, but marking escape vectors.
"They didn't escape unnoticed."
Vaerynna stepped closer.
"So we follow them?"
"No."
Sereyna blinked.
Even Vaerynna looked surprised.
"No?"
Kaine met their gazes.
"Not yet."
"Why wait?" Sereyna demanded.
"Because pursuit would drive them deeper into hiding. They believe they escaped. They believe time is theirs."
His voice chilled.
"We let them enjoy the illusion."
Vaerynna nodded slowly.
"So instead…"
"We make Volantis go silent."
Sereyna grinned.
"I like where this is heading."
They turned toward the Legion — three hundred warriors still perfectly arrayed across blood-washed stone.
Sereyna raised her sword.
"So next phase begins?"
"Yes," Kaine said.
The Legion shifted without being ordered — shields lowering pre-emptively for advance posture.
Vaerynna studied the city rising over the harbor.
"The army is shattered, but the city hasn't realized it yet."
Kaine took his first step off the battleground toward the streets of Volantis.
"They will."
A distant gong echoed — city alert bells beginning to ring.
Panic was spreading.
The real war had moved from docks to streets.
And Volantis had just become a hunting ground.
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part VIII)
The docks did not echo with retreat.
They rang with pursuit.
Kaine stood amid the fallen while the distant chaos of Volantis rose like thunder from the city's interior — bells tolling, horns sounding, frightened instructions echoing down streets that had not yet seen blood.
He lifted his blade slightly.
Not high.
Not dramatic.
Just enough to catch the lantern light.
"Legion," he said.
Three hundred helms turned to him as one.
"Purge."
Sereyna felt the word ripple like a shock through the formation.
Vaerynna's eyes gleamed.
The Legion moved.
Not forward — but outward.
The rigid phalanx dissolved into fluid hunting columns — squads breaking into groups of twelve, fanning across dock exits, warehouse corridors, mooring bridges, and into the shadowed arteries of Volantis.
No sound came from them.
No shouted acknowledgment.
No rally cry.
Just motion.
They moved like wolves scenting blood — silent predators with disciplined routes plotted into overlapping pursuit cones.
"Formation scatter pattern," Sereyna murmured. "Classic encirclement net."
"They aren't chasing," Vaerynna corrected quietly.
"They're finishing."
Across the docks fleeing Volantene soldiers ran — wounded men dragging broken shields, unarmored auxiliaries slipping into alleyways, officers abandoning banners in panic.
They did not make it far.
A fleeing group of Tigers rushed around a stacked gantry—
—and ran directly into a Legion kill team.
No battle followed.
Spears lunged once.
Bodies collapsed.
The Legion turned immediately toward the next prey scent without pausing to confirm kills.
Another squad attempted to barricade inside a warehouse.
Legion spears punched through weak timber walls simultaneously from four sides — synchronized thrusts impaling men before the barricade even finished rising.
No screams lingered long enough to echo.
Sereyna watched the city edges disappear into moving black silhouettes.
"They don't sprint blindly," she noted. "Look at their pace."
"They run calculated intercepts," Vaerynna said. "Every escape lane already sealed."
Kaine gave a soft nod.
"They float through decision trees — movement based on probability rather than pursuit emotion."
Sereyna blew out a low breath.
"So not wolves chasing blood."
He corrected her.
"Wolves who know exactly where the blood will flow."
They followed behind the retreating capital wave, stepping through intersections heavy with dying echoes.
The Legion ran faster than anticipated — armored forms crossing rooftops and alleyways with shocking mobility, vaulting debris effortlessly and snapping down onto stragglers with merciless speed.
"Look at that," Sereyna muttered.
"They're climbing buildings—"
"They treat terrain as irrelevant," Vaerynna replied.
A Legion spear team vaulted from a low rooftop into a fleeing Elephant platoon.
Eight men collapsed before any could shout a warning.
The remainder tried to scatter.
They died where they ran.
Sereyna scratched blood off her blade edge with a side flick.
"That's the most terrifying part."
"Which part?" Vaerynna asked.
"They never hurry."
Indeed — not one Legionnaire sprinted wildly.
They moved fast — but smooth.
Predatory tranquility ruled their pursuit — speed applied only where geometry demanded it.
Every escape was calculated before it began.
Vaerynna's gaze caught a squad of Volantene soldiers attempting to regroup near abandoned ship hulks along the harbor's far side.
"They think water protects them."
Kaine watched, expression calm.
"It limits movement."
Shadows pooled over the black waves.
From the darkness emerged Legion silhouettes crossing ship rigging and anchor chains like solid bridges.
They descended upon the stranded soldiers in silent drops.
The men never had time to run.
"Do you ever stop them?" Sereyna asked quietly.
Kaine did not answer immediately.
They passed a street where half a dozen soldiers lay dead — throats neatly cut.
One remaining man crawled weakly along a wall.
A Legionnaire stepped through shadow and speared him cleanly.
Clean. Efficient. Over.
The hunting column kept moving.
Kaine finally said:
"When the objective changes."
"And the objective now is…?" Sereyna pressed.
"To make it impossible for Volantis to believe it resisted."
"That's cruel."
"That's truth," he corrected.
Vaerynna exhaled slowly.
"You're erasing the idea of defiance before it reaches memory."
"Yes."
Another alarm bell clanged uselessly across the city.
"No army left to answer it," Sereyna said.
The remaining Volantene shouts drowned into scattered screams — those faded one by one across district after district.
No pitched street battles occurred.
There were only seizures of cul-de-sacs, alley kills, rooftop interceptions, sewer ambushes.
The Legion hunted until movement itself became impossible.
They did not stop until shadow-markers faded — until no fleeing soldier was left to mark as quarry.
Vaerynna watched a final fleeing Elephant officer try to vanish into a gated estate.
Two Legionnaires dropped from opposing rooftops and impaled him simultaneously.
They didn't break pace afterward.
"That was the last cluster," Vaerynna said softly.
Kaine nodded.
"They will report silence."
Sereyna tilted her head.
"To whom?"
"Every faction."
Sereyna glanced at Vaerynna.
"So the message spreads without messengers."
Kaine sheathed his blade.
"Yes."
"They will feel it through absence."
Shadows withdrew.
The Legion regrouped seamlessly — columns reconverging into unified ranks within the harbor square as if the scattering had never occurred.
Three hundred soldiers returned.
Not one was missing.
Not one was injured.
And no sounds followed them back.
Vaerynna crossed her arms slowly.
"That wasn't pursuit."
"That was extermination."
"Yes," Kaine replied.
"And now Volantis stands naked."
They watched the city skyline burn faintly in chaos as merchant bells rang unanswered and tiger patrol horns died mid-call.
The Legion awaited quietly, shields locked.
Sereyna breathed in deeply.
"So what's next?"
Kaine stared beyond the harbor, toward districts where conspirators hid behind contracts and gold.
"What should always follow slaughter."
Vaerynna guessed softly:
"Judgment?"
Kaine's answer was colder than dawn mist.
"Correction."
The shadows around his feet pulsed subtly.
Some conversations had not yet begun.
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part IX)
Smoke still drifted across the docks when the last organized resistance shattered.
What remained of Volantis' attack force broke in every direction at once.
Some ran back toward the riverward districts, throwing down shields to move faster. Others fled into alleyways between merchant warehouses, trying to disappear into the maze of streets. A handful attempted to reach stables or commandeer carts, desperate to outrun judgment on wooden wheels.
None of it mattered.
Kaine stood closest to the waterline, blade angled downward, armor streaked with blood that wasn't his. The last enemy formation had collapsed less than a minute earlier, reduced to scattered bodies across the stone. Beyond them, his three hundred were already moving.
Not charging.
Hunting.
Three-by-three they advanced into the streets, silent wedges flowing between buildings. Their pace was unhurried yet relentless — predatory movement refined by centuries of warfare compressed into mortal form. Each squad peeled off when targets were sighted, cornering fleeing soldiers with ruthless efficiency.
No battle cries echoed.
Only the wet sounds of steel meeting flesh.
Sereyna watched the pursuit unfold from beside Kaine.
"They're breaking deeper into the city," she said calmly. "Trying to scatter before your people box them."
Kaine didn't turn his head.
"They were taught that scattering saves lives."
Vaerynna stepped to his other side, wings flickering faintly beneath glamor as she traced the movements with her eyes.
"They haven't learned," she murmured, "that wolves spread wider when the prey flees."
Sereyna exhaled faintly.
"They'll be taken."
"They already are."
Across the docks, a flight of Tiger soldiers sprinted between fish warehouses — only to vanish as black-armored figures spilled from both sides of the street, spears snapping forward in perfect synchronization. The space was sealed faster than a gatehouse door falling shut.
The screams ended quick.
From the market road farther inland, a mounted trio attempted escape.
Vaerynna leaned forward slightly.
Kaine raised two fingers.
A formation shifted wordlessly.
Three Legion files broke into a run — smooth, perfectly matched strides — then crossed at an intersection ahead of the riders. Spears leveled. Horses reared. Two riders were thrown; the third vanished under overlapping steel.
Again, nothing was heard beyond the clash of metal.
Sereyna folded her arms.
"They can't outrun this."
"No," Kaine agreed. "Not tonight."
────────── ❖ ──────────
Not all the conspirators were foolish enough to flee in uniform.
Even as Volantene soldiers died or surrendered, the true architects of the assault were already escaping — changing cloaks, shedding faction colors, slipping into canals or merchant convoys destined for the outer roadways.
Kaine felt them before seeing them.
Shadows stretched along walls, lengthening toward retreating silhouettes. In alleys twisted with torchlight and thick with smoke, moving dots of darkness subtly branched and followed fleeing forms.
Vaerynna's eyes sharpened.
"They're running early," she said softly. "The leaders."
"Of course they are," Sereyna said with a humorless laugh. "They always leave their soldiers to slow the fall."
Kaine inclined his helm slightly.
"They will not leave the city."
────────── ❖ ──────────
The Legion spread outward from the docks like a closing net — controlled, precise, complete.
Street by street they advanced:
One group sealed bridges across side canals.
Another blockaded the southern cliff stairways.
A third cut through warehouse rows and slaughterhouse alleys.
Every route away from Volantis's outer district was severed.
Wagons attempting departure were stopped and turned back at spearpoint.
River skiffs already launched were intercepted mid-channel as black-armored figures leaped aboard moving vessels without a sound — passengers hauled to deck and disarmed before word could spread.
By the time the moon dipped low, the truth was unavoidable:
────────── ❖ ──────────
The conspirators now fleeing were running within the trap.
Sereyna watched torchlight blink out one by one as the Legion extinguished resistance pockets.
"Some slipped early," she noted. "Before the dock assault collapsed."
"They will be found."
"How sure?"
Kaine finally turned his helm toward her.
"Because the city belongs to me now," he said simply. "And the shadows inside it obey."
Vaerynna held his gaze for a heartbeat longer than necessary.
"They won't be killed tonight," she said. "You aren't ordering that."
"No," Kaine replied. "Their judgment is more useful than their deaths."
────────── ❖ ──────────
As the hour crept closer to morning, sporadic fighting gave way to silence.
Bodies lay in neat lines near thoroughfares — enemy soldiers removed from roads to allow Legion movement. Those captured alive had been bound and seated against walls in guarded clusters, too terrified to speak.
Word filtered through the remaining city watch:
The conspirators had failed to escape the net.
One by one they were intercepted:
Merchant princes hauled from cloaked caravans.
Tiger captains ripped from canal boats.
Elephant financiers seized mid-bribe while attempting safe passage.
All were disarmed.
All were bound.
All remained alive.
They were not executed.
Not yet.
They were brought instead toward the river plaza — the clearing at the base of the Triarch causeway — where Legion ranks were already assembling lines of kneeling prisoners illuminated by guttering torches.
Vaerynna observed the gathering from the dock rail.
"How many?"
"Thirty-seven," Sereyna answered. "Every faction involved."
"Kaine," Vaerynna said quietly. "You're pruning the city."
He met her gaze.
"No. I'm teaching it."
She gave a slow nod.
────────── ❖ ──────────
Far on the eastern horizon, the sky had begun to pale — the first hint of dawn bleeding above the smoke-smudged rooftops.
Citizens watched from shuttered windows.
Slaves huddled inside storehouses and kitchens, whispering prayers to gods that had never answered before.
Even the Triarch towers remained dark and silent — rulers shaken quiet behind stone walls.
Sereyna adjusted her gauntlet clasps.
"They thought they'd strike you down in darkness."
Vaerynna added softly, "Instead they revealed themselves."
Kaine studied the growing light.
"Yes."
She followed his gaze.
"What happens at dawn?"
"Truth."
A moment passed.
"And sentence."